TWD: Journey to Hope's Point
by W Cooper
Summary: NB. UNFINISHED AND REGULAR UPDATES WILL BE MADE. In this story, Lee does not get bitten and saves Clementine, where they escape. They carry on their journey together for the following 5 years, where the story picks up. This story includes fictional characters not included in the game.


They came across a dilapidated old shack, occupying a small opening in the dense woods. The bleak house blended in perfectly with the dull, grey surroundings caused by the clouded skies.

Lee saw an opportunity to scavenge for supplies in the seemingly abandoned residence.

"Look, Clem", he whispered as he pointed towards the shack, "maybe there could be some food and supplies in there."

"Okay" the little girl hastily replied, completely reliant on Lee's actions.

"Just gotta watch out for damn walkers".

The two, hunched over as to sneak up to the area, carefully moved up to house's veranda. Lee stepped up to the first platform, slowly. A squeak from the rotting wood eked out of it, and caused Lee to hesitantly step off of it and look around on his guard.

"Damn thing's got wood rot" he stated, thinking aloud.

He pressed his foot onto the step once more, very gently and slowly, so the squeak was more drawn out and subtle. Clementine followed suit, after Lee had cautiously set his foot upon the second step, always one pace behind her guardian. They continued in this fashion until they reached the top of the veranda, now faced with the front door directly ahead of them.

It was now getting dark, and being aware of the dangers of the darkness, Lee expressed his idea that they would most probably have to stay the night there.

"Aww, but its gross here... and scary" Clementine moaned.

"Look Clem, I wouldn't want to stay here either, but I'd rather shelter and keep you safe than around them damn walkers all night".

Clem looked at Lee reassuringly, and a little more confidence seemed to settle in. Lee put on a faint half smile before turning back to the main business of opening the door. The paint on the door was very faded, starting off as most probably white, before turning into a dreary grey colour. Mould looked as if it were settling on the perimeters of the door, and the frame had many chips in, as to suggest it had been forced open more than once in the past. Lee knew the chances of supplies being present in this isolated shack was slim, but kept the thought to himself.

The first thing, most obviously, he tried to do was use the door knob. He rattled it but the door was locked and remained so.

"Of course it's locked." he muttered in a somewhat annoyed tone.

Thinking to himself, he wondered what he had on him which could help him enter. Nothing directly sprang to mind, and he stood there, pondering for a minute.

"Look!" Clem exclaimed.

As Lee turned to look, she pointed to part of the wall, which looked much weaker than the rest, with large cracks in it which had been attempted to be boarded up with ancient plywood.

"Good going Clem" Lee praised as he went over to the boards of wood. "It seems as though someone used to live here, probably ran away because of the walkers".

"...or worse." Clem quietly expressed in a gloomy manner.

Lee looked at her for a split second before turning back to the task at hand. He started to kick the wood, making a loud banging sound repeatedly. The wood stood firm. Again, he gave it another kick, but nothing happened. Wave after wave of brute force, and not a lot of progress seemed to have been made.

"Lee!" Clementine squealed.

He turned around to see a mass of walkers surrounding the way which they had walked up to the house, looking as if they had been surrounded.

"Quick!"

Lee had to think quickly, he reached into his pocket to rummage around for anything useful. Desperately, as the walkers' moans become more and more poignant the closer they stumbled, he grabbed the penknife which he had found a few weeks ago from the back pocket of his worn out, muddy cargo jeans. He stabbed furiously at the wood, eventually making a small weakness.

"Come on, COME ON!" Lee frustratedly shouted.

Clem ran towards Lee and held onto his shirt as the walkers now ambled up to the steps. Lee gave the wood one more brutal kick, when it finally collapsed.

"Go go go! Get inside Clem!" he urged as he made sure her safety came before his.

She scurried into the beach ball-sized hole. Lee tried to dive into it, but couldn't manage past his shoulders to squeeze in.

"Shit, Clem, unlock the front door!"

She accepted the orders and ran to the next room out of sight. As Lee wriggled his way out of the gap, he heard a distinguishable hiss from behind him; a walker pounced at him whilst he was on all fours. Distinctively, Lee rolled out of the way, in the direction of the front door. He listened out for the lock being undone, which immediately sounded. He clambered to his feet, but stumbled back to the floor after losing his footing on the first attempt. The walker collapsed on top of him again, wildly attempting to lunge into his neck to feast. They wrestled for a few seconds, before Lee managed to throw it down the stairs of the veranda. He again scrappily got to his feet, as Clem opened the door.

"Lee!" she yelled, with a frightened look on her face.

Lee immediately made his way to the door, where he slammed it behind him, locking it, and slid down until he was sitting propped up against the door. Clem jumped into his arms, holding him tightly,

"Are you ok Lee?" She worryingly proposed.

"Yeah yeah kiddo, I'm fine" Lee panted. "I guess we're staying here for a while."

He stood back up, and explained that they should search the house for anything useful, or dangerous. He told Clem to stay close. They seemed to be in a main hall, with two rooms on either side feeding off of it. All doors were open, and a silence rung out over the property.

"Hm, doesn't seem as though anything is here" Lee assured.

The hallway led to a flight of stairs up to an upper floor. He walked up casually to the flight of stairs, when suddenly he felt something clamp around his leg – a rope had grasped his ankle. He frantically looked down at the rope, and then turned his head to see Clementine's face light with horror as it hoisted him upwards, where he fell backwards and smacked his head on the solid wooden floor, causing him to black out, the last thing listening to was Clem's panicked screams of his name.

He woke up, alone in a small, uncomfortable wooden bed. After a few seconds of dizziness and blurred vision, he worked out he was still in the old shack, most probably upstairs. After realising this, he jolted upright and hopped out of bed, before rapidly opening the door. Just about to run out and back downstairs, he jumped backwards as a figure was stood right outside the bedroom.

A teenage boy of average height, with wavy, black hair appeared. He seemed slenderly muscular, wearing old black jeans and a dirty red hoodie.

"Hey, there, you alright sir?" the boy asked Lee.

Lee stood there, confused, saying nothing.

"Sorry about last night, we're used to robbers and bandits coming in to raid us and take shelter here, so we set up all kinds of neat traps. We hid up in this room as we heard you trying to get into the house yesterday, as soon as you hit the trap, I ran downstairs 'cause I knew you weren't bandits, I heard you had a girl with you."

"Its... it's alright" Lee started to get his head around the events of yesterday... "I... wait who's we? And where's Clem?!" his voice got louder and louder.

"Lee!" Clem ran up the stairs to him. "I see you've met Bill!" and smiled at both of them in turn.

"So it's Lee then, right? Yeah I'm Bill and I live here with my older brother, Josh."

They made their way downstairs and into the nearest room on the left, which looked like a small kitchen. Everything in the house was in a completely unorganised and messy state, there seemed to rubbish everywhere, and mould on most furniture.

"Hey, Lee" a voice came from the kitchen as they entered. He turned to face them whilst grabbing out 4 cans of baked beans from a cupboard.

He seemed to have the same facial features as the last boy, leaving Lee to deduce they were brothers. Unlike his brother, his hair was short but wild, brown curls poking messily yet uniformly around his head. He had a cut down his left cheek, spanning from the bottom of his eye to his chin, where an ill-kept, stubbly beard was on show.

He too had relatively dirty clothes, with mud flickered up his black polo top and blue jeans. His now-grey hoes seemed much worn, with holes around the sides between the sole and the material for the top of the shoe.

"Beans alright for ya?"

"Yes, thank you." Lee politely answered, still confused as to what's going on.

"Name's Josh, seems as if you've found Bill. We've been living in this here shack for about 6 months, now. Not exactly a palace, but it's a place we can rest up and relax... sort of."

He opened all the cans of beans and gave it to each of them, where they sat around a small, circular wooden table, looking as if it would collapse at any moment. Lee thankfully took the can and slowly eating it, in a mannered fashion. Josh and Lee then began explaining their journeys since the breakout up to the present time.

"Yeah, he and I were coming back from school that day, four years ago," he began, "Boston. I was eighteen, he was just eleven. Had my car back then, was driving back when we hit heavy traffic. After being standstill for what seemed like forever I got out to realise most of the cars in front of me had been abandoned. We saw a group of people walking towards us. I was just about to ask what was happening when I saw... well, I saw they were different. Without a second of thought, I told my bro to get out the car and we just ran. Found a group of other people with big cars and supplies, and tagged along."

As the two were exchanging stories, Bill and Clementine were introducing themselves as well, finding close links immediately.

"How old are you?" Clem directly asked.

Bill sat down next to her and replied, "fifteen now, just had my birthday a couple of weeks ago. What about you?"

"I'm fourteen, my birthday's still way off."

"You said Lee wasn't your Dad didn't you? Where are your parents?" Bill inquired.

Clem dropped her head to the floor. "Gone. A long time ago."

"My parents are also gone," Bill began, "we were on the phone to them when it happened... I was talking to my mum when she started yelling and..." he stopped and gazed out the window for a second.

"The last thing she said, between all the cries of help... was to stay strong and remember she loved me. I was just welling up with tears so much, I tried to say goodbye, but nothing came out. I regret that every day." he now also swung his head down so he was staring at the floor.

Clementine, who was now looking at him, claimed "maybe you didn't have to, it isn't always a goodbye. She still looks out for you every day, and she knows that she's with you always, you should know that as well."

Bill looked up at her and smiled, as she smiled back at him.

"You know, it's great to have someone about my age around here again. You and Lee should stay!"

Bill's welcoming statement was loud enough so that the other two could here. Josh looked at Bill and Clem, and turned to Lee.

He invitingly suggested, "Yeah, you should stay with us, or at least we should go together to wherever, the state of this place makes me feel it's coming to the end of its useful life. We managed to stockpile some supplies in the living room: meds, food, water, and even a few weapons from the odd bandit who came snooping."

Everyone now had all eyes on Lee, waiting for a response. He looked around at them all, before making a decision.

"Yeah, why not. Safety in numbers, right? We've been travelling on our own for months".

Clem and Bill smiled.

"Alright then," Josh concluded, "We'll pack up supplies tonight and head off tomorrow."

"Sounds like a plan." Lee agreed, "Until then, I'll help temporarily fix them holes we made on the way here."

Lee stood up and went off to search for materials to reconstruct the damages.

"Tomorrow we finally set off out of these god forsaken woods, then" Bill murmured, in a hopeful yet solemn tone.

Bang.

A gunshot rang out in the distance, waking Lee up from a surprisingly comfortable sleep. He forced his eyes upon, staring at the wooden beams above the small bed he lay in for a while. The small window in his room attempted to flood his room with radiance from the freshly rising sun, creating a main slit of intense light, situated right across Lee's eyes.

He heard mumbling from the floor below, and the creaking of the old stairs as someone scurried up them. A knock then sounded at his door and Bill popped his head in.

"Ah you're awake. Good. Uh, we're heading off soon so come down and grab a can of something to keep ya going."

Lee acknowledged this whilst blankly staring out the window at the surrounding trees.

Bang. A second gunshot thundered out, this time closer.

"Shit" Lee muttered to himself as he jumped out of bed.

He paced into the hallway to find Josh, Bill and Clem all sitting in the kitchen, and told Josh what he heard.

"Yeah, I heard it too, getting closer isn't it? Better get out of here real soon. Bring some food along with ya, let's go."

"Yeah, okay."

The group grabbed their belongings and made their way out of the old house. Bill turned around to silently say goodbye to his most recent home of 6 months, and then carried on down the stairs of the now-abandoned property.

"Right, West is in this direction" Lee stated, pointing towards one side of the thick woodland. He decided to take charge of the group, being the oldest and most responsible part of it.

"Lucky, cos I think the gunshots were coming from the opposite way."

"Good. Probably bandits, they can have that mouldy hut now. Let's head off then." Josh said.

They began the trek, and everyone became quiet, realising they had just set out for an extensive adventure, not knowing when they will be in relative safety again. Keeping to a rough footpath which cut through the dense trees enough for them to comfortably walk double file, Lee and Josh took the lead, in front of Bill and Clementine, situated just a pace behind them.

"Hope's Point."

Josh disrupted the silence as they began their hike into the forest.

"Huh?" Lee quizzically replied, with a look a confusion covering his face.

"Hope's Point. Got news about it roughly half a year ago from these other travellers we passed. Sounds like it's the largest city on the West Coast newly set up by survivors. Nearest thing we've got to a goddamn civilisation out here, they got hundreds of people there trying to run a proper government-led lifestyle, just like before... y'know, schools, jobs, housing and the like. 24/7 security to make sure no infection enters, and kind to survivors like us."

Lee's eyes glinted, a new hope slowly built up inside of him.

"Maybe it's the beginning of the retaliation – the people fight back."

A slight pause loomed over the group as they thought about the prospect of an ordinary lifestyle.

"It'll be strange to just... settle down after all of this, everyone struggling to keep themselves alive all this time. Seems like it's too good to be true." Lee claimed

"Well, it might well be, I got no other evidence that this place is real other than some stories this couple told me a few months ago. Guess it gives us an aim, so hey, let's go get 'em"

The younger two were heard laughing and giggling behind Lee. He turned around and looked at Clem, who seemed to blush slightly red when she looked at him, and smiled. She returned it with a beaming grin, and returned to her conversation with her new friend.

"Heh, looks like they've warmed to each other quickly" Josh smirked as they kept walking onwards. "I can't remember the last time I heard Bill be in such a bright mood."

"Yeah," Lee distantly agreed, whilst trying to remember the last time Clementine had done the same. "Well, I'm glad they have something to be happy about in times like these."

An hour passed. Two hours. Three. The scenery was all looking too familiar, with endless rows upon rows of trees coming into view.

"Hey, Josh" Lee commenced.

"Yeah?"

"When was the last time you were out of these woods?"

Josh thought about it for a bit. He stroked his rough stubble on his chin whilst in full thought.

"Hmm, I'd say 'bout a year ago maybe? We've found a good two or three little settlements in these woods which we've stayed in, I can tell you now goin' west from our little home meant we went deeper in the woods before we get to the other side. I got no maps or GPS but I think we're about half an hour from the edge of the forest now."

The time passed, and as Josh suggested, they had come to the edge of the forest. An empty road was in front of them, followed by a barren landscape the other side of it. Looking up the road, it seemed to bear around some hills to face a westerly direction.

Lee gave instructions: "Let's follow the road for now, may be dangerous but better than finding ourselves in the middle of nowhere in that deserted landscape over there."

Josh nodded, then looked back at the forest from which they had come from and where the two brothers had spent the best part of a year, and turned back to view the path which was ahead of them.

Chapter 2:

The group had been on the move on the exact same stretch of road westwards for a good three days, making camps at night in whatever place looked relatively safe at the side of the tarmac street. Lee and Josh took turns on lookout overnight, and both were extremely exhausted after staying up extortionately long each night.

"Man, I'm dead on my feet" Josh whinged. "Keeping my eyes open is becoming an impossible task, this ain't healthy"

"Well you better, otherwise we might get into a bit of trouble" Lee cautioned.

The two kids had been unusually quiet the last couple of days, feeling the exhaustion of several bad night's due to sleeping in these dangerous areas.

"Are we stopping soon? My feet hurt..." Clem softly asked Lee

"Not for a while, we gotta keep going whilst the coast is clear. I'm sorry, Clem, but next time we stop you can have a nice long break, ok?" He bargained.

"Yeah... okay"


End file.
